The Empathy Conundrum
by Amie357
Summary: When Penny's life is in danger, Sheldon risks everything to save her with unexpected consequences. A Shenny story (but if you're not into that you don't have to read it :))
1. Chapter 1

Penny blew an exasperated breath through her lips. Sheldon had demanded that she take him to the comic book store as Leonard had 'inconsiderately' gone out for a date. It didn't appear to matter to Sheldon that she had just finished what felt like the longest shift in the history of the world, filled with awkward customers rivalling even the good doctor himself. Not only that, but the tips that she had been given were absolutely pitiful in comparison to the level of effort that she had expended.

She had agreed to take him to the comic book store reluctantly, acquiescing only when she could see his agitation levels beginning to head towards the red zone. She knew Leonard had been neglecting him recently, throwing himself into dating since she had ended their relationship. So Penny felt a tiny bit guilty. Only a tiny bit, but the tug on her conscience was just enough for her feet to stop aching.

Doing the quickest outfit change that she could into jeans and a comfortable but close fitting brightly patterned teeshirt, listening to Sheldon cleaning her apartment while he waited for her, Penny shook her head. She had started to get closer to Sheldon recently than she thought possible.

It seemed that the end of her relationship with Leonard had stirred up feelings of friendship and loyalty to her within the tall physicist. That made her annoyance at his demanding ways disappear and a soft smile graced her features.

She slipped on a pair of flip flops, retrieved her friend and they trotted down the stairs to her car. They both got in and she watched Sheldon's face tic as he looked pointedly at the 'check engine' light. She had threatened to punch him in the throat if he mentioned it again and he seemed to be just about keeping himself in check.

They pulled out into traffic in silence and started on the familiar route to the comic book store.

"Penny," Sheldon began a little hesitantly, breaking the silence in the car. "I wish to ask-"

He was interrupted by the loudest bang that he had ever heard. The car went light as it began to spin across the road, the metal screeching in protest. The analytical part of his brain, the one that spoke in the maddeningly calm voice despite whatever was happening to the rest of him, told him that they had been struck by a large jeep which had jumped a red light. It also told him that they would be pinned between the jeep and the wall in a little over six seconds.

The other parts of Sheldon's impressively large brain were trying to calculate ways to get out of the potentially fatal situation. Theory after theory poured through his synapses, calculated and dismissed over and over at a speed of which The Flash would be envious. He looked over at Penny's petrified face as she wrestled with the wheel, pumping the brakes and trying to get their vehicle into a more favourable position.

He felt a stab of admiration pass through the only part of his brain that wasn't working through calculations of variables. She was very resourceful and he had always respected that about her.

With a thud that reverberated through the car and their bodies, they struck the wall hard. Sheldon had relaxed his body to minimize injuries and was remarkably lucky to be on the wall side of the collision, rather than getting the other vehicle impacting into his door. As he realized that Penny would have been on that side, his face dropped and his head whipped up.

Sheldon was bruised and battered. Penny, on the other hand, was far worse.

With a chill running down his spine, he noted that her head lolled in semi-consciousness. Her beautiful face was already showing signs of bruising and blood poured out of a deep laceration on her forehead. As his eyes ran down her body, he could see her arm was at a strange angle, which told him that her collar bone was definitely broken. He looked down and saw that her legs were crushed by the collapsed steering column. She probably had broken femurs.

He felt his heart thudding in his chest. The force that it would take to break femurs would most certainly cause internal injuries. His eyes flicked up and his face gave a small tic that belied the sheer panic about to take hold. He was trapped and Penny was in extremely critical condition. The jeep had them pinned in place. He couldn't do anything, he thought bleakly.

He could see and hear people rushing around outside in the periphery of his attention, but his eyes were fixed on Penny. He gently took her wrist and felt for her pulse. It was thready and weak. He frowned and bit his lip as he gently lowered her hand back to her leg, being careful not to move her any more than was necessary to avoid the broken bones being aggravated further than they needed to.

Before he could allow himself to feel the panic that was building within him and before he could allow the thought that Penny may not in fact be ok and may indeed not survive this he saw flashing lights and heard sirens.

Time finally sped up to normal, instead of the painfully laboured, surreal slow motion bubble that they had been in since the jeep had struck them. Paramedics tried to extract Sheldon first, seeing his distress until he virtually screamed that Penny was in a far worse state and that was, in fact, the cause of his distress.

They couldn't get to either of the pair in the car easily. The fire crew started to move the ruined jeep, taking the driver out on a stretcher. Sheldon's eyes were on Penny, blazing with concern, as the highly trained rescue crew cut the side of her crumpled red car off to get to her.

Without moving a muscle or taking his eyes off his friend, he answered every question that was fired at him by the paramedics. He gave sufficient detail in his responses, no more, no less. He felt as though his brain was on pause and his mouth was moving of its own accord. He felt scraped bare and hollow inside.

After what felt like years, they managed to move Penny on to a stretcher on the ground and started to work on her. Sheldon couldn't see her anymore and could feel the hot burn of panic in his chest. He knew it wasn't logical, but he felt that if he could keep his eyes on her he could keep her in the land of the living with sheer willpower.

With popping and screeching, the metal of the car that held Sheldon in place was cut and removed. He hauled himself out, brushing past the paramedics and ignoring their warnings to get to Penny. The team working on his friend didn't even look up as he came over, wringing his hands worriedly.

Blood pressure and pulse readings were read out between the trained medics. Their faces drew grim lines and Sheldon knew that things were deteriorating for Penny. They injected her with a variety of drugs and quickly hung an IV bag, but the readings on the equipment connected to her on the floor around her were worsening with every moment that passed.

As another injection was fed into the tiny, pale looking woman on the ground, her eyes fluttered open. Sheldon could see agony etched on her features. This seemed to send the medics into overdrive, exchanging frantic words and even more frantic actions.

Sheldon's eyes met Penny's. He saw tears in his friend's eyes and tried to show her how much he cared about her. He felt his stomach lurch as her eyes lost their sparkle and rolled up into her head.

He heard the long beep of her heart giving up.

He heard a failed attempt at resuscitation.

He heard another.

He heard the report that she was dead.

Something long pushed away within Sheldon pulled itself out.

Something new snapped. He felt his heart break.

Disconnected from his body, Sheldon saw himself lean down and push the paramedics out of the way. He pulled the IV out of Penny and threw it to the side. He picked her up gently and tenderly, ignoring the pulling of the fire crew and paramedics. With a speed he didn't know he possessed, Sheldon rose and sprinted away as though Penny weighed nothing.

He watched himself run the couple of blocks back to his apartment, kick the doors nearly hard enough to wrench them off their hinges and sprint up the stairs, two at a time. He kicked the door to Penny's apartment until the lock gave up and allowed him entry. He strode to her bedroom and laid her on the bed gently.

Sheldon's mind reconnected with his body as he knelt on the floor and put one hand on Penny's chest and the other under her shirt on her stomach. He closed his eyes and called up the strange instinct within him that he had suppressed for most of his life.

In his mind, he felt Penny fighting to stay with her body. He knew that she wasn't truly gone. She was just... broken...

Sheldon's hands began to heat up to the point of being uncomfortable. He channelled everything that he had within him, every scrap of love, hope and his formidable intelligence, into the ball of energy that he called up inside himself. With a deep breath, he pushed it towards Penny, visualising the light within him coursing through his veins and out of the tips of his fingers.

He steeled himself for the onslaught of pain as he connected with Penny in a way that he hadn't connected with anyone since he was a small child. He had spent years putting up layers and layers of tough barriers to stop this from happening. But he needed to keep Penny in his life, so he had exploded those barriers without so much as a thought.

He pulled her injuries into himself, starting with her heart. He felt a blossom of pain in his chest as he felt her pulse restart. As the pain started to recede, Sheldon began pulling the lacerations and damage of her internal organs into himself. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he willed himself not to pass out. He couldn't do it too quickly as she would end up... how she was... if he didn't finish helping her and he would probably be in pretty bad shape too.

He let a few long seconds pass as his body healed her injuries within him. He was impatient to carry on and make sure that she would be ok as that was all that he wanted in the world at that moment. However, his logical mind allowed him to wait and gave him the burst of patience that he needed.

Broken bones were what he had always feared as a child. Transferring a broken bone was so much more painful than anything else as he could literally feel the bones within him splintering and grinding against each other. This time, he had no fear and no trepidation. He dragged every last bit of pain and injury into himself. As his collar bone broke, a scream ripped from his throat, but he didn't move his hands away a millimetre.

After that had healed, he hauled himself up on to the bed, not removing his hands from her and not opening his eyes. The femurs would be next and he couldn't be kneeling for that. His eyes fluttered open and he watched with grim fascination as his legs shattered, looking every bit like a time lapse movie of an explosion within his thighs.

He felt a whimper in his throat turn into a grunt of pain as it blossomed, dark and sinister within him. Tears rolled down his cheeks and splashed on Penny's shirt, joining the blood and dirt that was smudged there. He was dangerously close to fainting with the sheer exertion of doing what he was doing.

He used the last of his strength and considerable will power to push the glow within him to his legs to heal their injuries. As the ragged edges of bone pushed against each other on their voyage to reunite, he gave a hiss of pain.

That was the major items dealt with, so Sheldon pulled the last of Penny's pain and injury into himself and felt the last bright sparks dancing around his body. With that, he passed out on the bed, his head falling unceremoniously on Penny's feet.


	2. Chapter 2

Penny's head spun in a cocoon of light as she blinked to clear the cobwebs out of her eyes. She could feel a pressure on her legs and pushed herself up to see Sheldon, slumped across her, his arms stretched out towards her. She put her hand to her chest and stomach, remembering a warmth there as memories of that evening swum to the surface like a dream.

She didn't know what to think. It had a surreal quality to it that she needed to ask Sheldon about. Something was off, but she didn't know what it was. She decided to push it to the back of her mind for now and speak to Sheldon about it later.

For now, she wanted to look after Sheldon. Judging by the dirt and blood caked on the pair of them, something major had happened. She remembered the accident, but that stopped when they hit the wall. Then she was back in her apartment. She had no idea how.

All she knew was that something major had happened and she was almost entirely sure that Sheldon had played an important part in that. She could feel some lingering... something... that connected her to him. It felt like a bright thread from his heart to hers.

She lightly and carefully extracted her feet from underneath him, standing a little unsteadily at the side of the bed. She pulled him carefully up to the top of the bed and cradled his head gently up to the pillow. She stroked his cheek affectionately and went to get them both some water.

She gulped down most of the bottle as she walked back from the kitchen to the bedroom and set her mostly empty and his full bottle on the nightstand. She crawled over him and cuddled up to his side, feeling so exhausted that the questions that threatened to roll out stayed at the back of her mind as sleep quickly claimed her.

Sheldon awoke slowly, knowing at least a couple of hours had passed. As he opened his eyes, he saw Penny looking down at him, laying on her side next to him with her arm bent, holding her head up. She smiled at him, but her face was filled with concern.

He cleared his throat. "Penny," he said hoarsely.

Penny leaned over him and grabbed the two bottles of water. She gave him his and he pulled the top off and chugged down its entire contents gratefully. Penny sipped at the last of hers, finishing it quickly.

"I need you to tell me what happened," Penny said quietly and simply. "All I remember is being pinned up against the wall by the jeep. I remember hurting and then I was here with you passed out on my feet."

Sheldon hauled himself up to a seated position and turned towards Penny, who sat up with him.

"You were injured," Sheldon said quietly, his eyes shimmering with tears. "The p-paramedics came and you were cut out of the car. They did everything they could but..."

Sheldon looked down at his hands, which fidgeted in his lap. Penny gently pulled his chin up to force him to look her in the eyes. Tears rolled down his cheeks, but neither acknowledged the uncharacteristic display of emotion from the scientist.

"But what?" Penny prompted.

"But..." Sheldon heaved a sigh. "Your injuries were too extensive for them to do anything to help you and you... Penny, you died."

Penny's mouth hung open. She didn't know how to process that.

"You were on the floor on a stretcher," Sheldon continued in a quiet, flat voice that she had never heard before. "They just pronounced time of death and something inside me knew that you were still there, clinging on."

"I don't even know where to start in understanding this, Sheldon," Penny said earnestly.

Sheldon's eyes looked pleadingly into hers. She knew that he was about to tell her something that he really didn't want to, but she also knew that he would do it anyway, for her.

"When I was a child," he said slowly, "my sister fell out of a tree and broke a couple of bones. She cried and cried. Mom was at the church with Dad and Meemaw was watching us, but was out in the field because one of the cattle had got loose."

Penny gave his hand a reassuring squeeze, hoping that he wouldn't stop before he had explained why she was inexplicably alive.

"Missy was supposed to stay indoors, but she wanted to climb the tree. I begged her not to, but she did anyway. When she fell, she broke her arm and her leg and was in so much pain. I didn't know what to do, so I held her hand. Somehow, by touching her, I took her injuries into myself and healed her. Then whatever it was that made the transfer happen healed me."

Penny gasped and looked deep into his eyes, looking for a hint of a trick or a lie. She found neither lurking in the intensely sparkling blue eyes of her best friend.

"Meemaw came back and knew what had happened. She put Missy to bed and we sat together in the kitchen. She told me I was like her Meemaw was - a true empath. We literally feel what others feel. If that is an injury, we take it. If it's an emotion, we feel it."

Penny could see on his face that it was an admission that he had never expected to make. Her mind whirled. This explained quite a lot about why Sheldon was how he was.

"Is that why you don't like touching people?" she asked gently.

"Yes," he admitted, his eyebrow quirking upwards in surprise at how perceptive she was. "I get a frightening glimpse into the head of whoever I touch and I find it... disquieting."

Penny gave a soft laugh. "So you've seen inside my head then?"

"I have," he said, blushing furiously.

"We're so coming back to that," she told him with a smile. "Did it hurt when you took my injuries?"

"No," he said a little too quickly, his face twitching madly.

"Sheldon," she chastised gently.

"I'm an empath Penny," he said softly. "I felt what you felt."

"You went through broken bones, crushed organs and a stopped heart for me?" she said in a ragged whisper. Her eyes were full of tears and her heart felt like it was made of lead. She hadn't wanted him to suffer.

"I couldn't let you die, Penny," he said hoarsely. "I'd go through it every day if it meant keeping you here."

Penny's chin quivered and she fought back tears. "I want to hug you, Sheldon, but I don't want to force you into my head."

"Ah, here's the thing, Penny," Sheldon said, looking earnestly into her eyes. "When I perform the healing, especially a large one such as yours, I stay connected for several days afterwards."

"So it doesn't matter if I hug you?" Penny said excitedly, slightly missing the point.

"Indeed," Sheldon said, with a resigned sigh.

Penny bundled him into the biggest, warmest hug that she could muster. She pressed herself as close into him as she could and whispered thanks into his ear before tears rolled down her face. She almost cried out in surprise as Sheldon returned the hug with equal warmth.

"Don't get used to this touching business," he murmured into her hair.

"I live in the moment, Sheldon," she murmured back tearily. "I'll enjoy it while it's here."


	3. Chapter 3

Their hug was cut short by a curt knock on the door. Penny reluctantly extracted herself from the longest contact that she had ever had with the confusing beautiful mind that lived across the hall and went to answer.

She pulled the door open, noticing that the lock was broken - she'd have to quiz Sheldon about that later. A fireman was waiting for her.

"Your vehicle was involved in a serious accident earlier today," he said quickly. "Did you lend it to someone?"

"N-no," she stammered. She didn't quite know what to say. She felt a surge of relief as Sheldon appeared at her elbow.

"Allow me to explain," Sheldon said calmly, pulling the gaze of the waiting officer. "We were involved in the accident and were not significantly injured. Being a doctor myself, I extracted us both from the scene of the accident to return here and treat our injuries."

"Doctor or not, you shouldn't have left the scene," the fireman said with a furrowed brow.

"I do apologise," Sheldon said sincerely. "I was not in my right mind at the time."

The fireman did not look as though he wanted to accept Sheldon's apology.

"While I understand that it was not the best course of action," Sheldon persisted, "it was not a situation that I have experienced before. I panicked and wanted to extract myself and my companion from it as quickly as possible. I am a law abiding citizen in the main, but I will accept any consequences of my actions."

Penny could almost feel Sheldon's train of thought in her head. She knew he was trying to distract the man from his line of questioning and hoping against hope that he hadn't found out that there was a missing dead person.

"There were some very strange reports from the accident," the fireman continued. "Reports that the driver had been killed and that a man roughly fitting your description had literally run with the body in his arms. Would you care to explain that?"

"That is a strange report," Sheldon said, looking calm on the outside but practically exploding with fear and panic on the inside. "You will notice that we are both quite alive."

"Indeed," the fireman conceded, eyeing the pair suspiciously. "Would you mind if I came in and checked around your apartment?"

Sheldon moved back to allow him entry. Sheldon stopped him and proffered his hand.

"I'm Doctor Sheldon Cooper, by the way," he said.

The fireman raised his eyebrow but shook Sheldon's outstretched hand anyway. Penny watched them, torn between fascination and curiosity at this strange behaviour from Sheldon.

She saw a sudden and instant change of demeanour in the uniformed man.

"Thank you, Doctor Cooper," he said in a friendly, light voice. "I'll instruct the authorities to notify your insurance company about the accident. The driver of the other car seemingly had a heart attack behind the wheel and ploughed into your car. You were very lucky to get away without injury."

"Indeed," Sheldon said with a curt nod. "Many thanks for following up to ensure our safety."

They shook hands again and the fireman left swiftly.

"What just happened?" Penny whispered with wide eyes.

"I was hoping you wouldn't notice," Sheldon said glumly. "I hate doing that."

"What exactly did you do?"

"I haven't done that in quite some years," Sheldon told her with a resigned sigh. "I can tweak things in another person's head, which in this case avoided the need for awkward explanations."

Sheldon was so matter of fact about it all that Penny didn't feel like freaking out just yet. She knew it would happen at some point, but was going to delay that for as long as she possibly could.

"What happened to the door, Sheldon?" she asked with a wry smile.

"I needed to get in to... uh..." he trailed off, his cheeks reddening. "So I kicked it open."

"Pretty manly there, Sheldon," she said with a soft smile. "I'll call a repair man."

They passed the next couple of hours while they waited for the repair man taking turns to shower and change. Sheldon popped next door to grab a change of clothes, but hurried back, not wanting Penny to spend too much time alone in an apartment with no means to keep the door secured.

His link to Penny didn't help the situation much. He remembered when he had healed Missy that first time, he hadn't been able to leave her side for longer than a few minutes without feeling agitated. Being clingy wasn't something that Sheldon particularly enjoyed.

Penny put their clothes into her laundry hamper, wanting to get the reminders of what had happened out of the way. They put Star Trek on the television, which they stared at but neither watched. They were both too lost in thought.

The repair man arrived quickly and efficiently repaired the lock and the door. Sheldon paid him as Penny's cash was in her purse, in her smashed car, which was probably hauled off to some kind of impound lot. The repair man left quickly, dashing off to another job.

"We need to talk, sweetie," Penny said, the moment that the door was locked.

"I knew you were going to say that," Sheldon said with a smirk.

"This... connection..." Penny began hesitantly, ignoring Sheldon's smugness. "Does it go two ways?"

"No," Sheldon replied, sitting down on the couch. He knew this was going to be a long conversation. "Well, it never has before. Something you want to tell me?"

Penny could tell that the scientist within him was warring with the part of him that kept this secret. She decided that her curiosity needed to fan the flames of his inner scientist.

"I get little flashes," she told him, plopping down next to him and leaning in conspiratorially. "I think only when you feel something strongly. When someone touches you, do you just see in their head while you're touching or does that linger?"

Sheldon narrowed his eyes, feeling that she was prodding him into sharing, but also seeing that she was doing it because she cared.

"Just while we touch," he told her. "It lingered once with you, after I hugged you when you gave me my napkin, because I forgot myself and hugged too long. It was only for a few minutes. You were very happy."

Penny grinned and felt his wave of happiness at the memory and gratitude at the gift was across her. Obviously he felt very strongly about that particular moment.

"I was," Penny murmured, with a wide grin. "So you can heal and if someone touches you, you can feel their feelings; you can tweak what people think. Anything else?"

Sheldon gave a shy half smile. "I've never tried anything more than that," he admitted.

"Do you want to try anything? We're linked, we may as well give in to your curiosity."

"And yours as well, I think." He gave a soft chuckle.

"I can't pull the wool over your eyes for a while, huh?" Penny grinned.

"There was one thing that I've wanted to try, but I'm not sure how you will feel about it," Sheldon said, looking at his lap again.

"Sheldon," she said seriously, pulling his chin again. "You saved my life. Anything is on the table." She laughed at herself, realising that, had this been anyone but Sheldon, he would have gone to a filthy place with that statement.

A wave of attraction, lust and love rolled over her from him. It was so brief that she was barely sure that it had happened.

"Sheldon?" she asked in a hushed voice. "What was that I just felt?"

"I'm a man, Penny," he told her, cheeks flaming. "When you say things like that, even by accident, you make any man feel like that."

"Even you?" she asked instantly.

"I may not wear my feelings on my sleeve like every other man, Penny, but that does not mean that I do not feel. I merely suppress it." He looked faintly offended. "I am not the robot that everyone believes I am."

"I know that, sweetie," Penny replied quickly. "You are a loyal and wonderful friend, so you have to feel things. I know you don't express it..."

Penny trailed off as another wave of Sheldon's feelings hit her. It felt an awful lot like disappointment.

"Disappointed about what?" she wondered out loud.


End file.
